About

I make work that addresses how the female body has been viewed over time, with a raw, direct approach to narrative and an emphasis on texture. The language of my visual art and my poetry is simple, yet explicit and fully charged. I'm interested in women's relationships to their bodies, and the roles that their bodies have played throughout history.

The material and texture of the object is integral to my practice, and its connection to the body. Evidence of the hand and the physical marks of the body is always present in my work. I’m fascinated how historically women worked within the constraints of the domestic space to express themselves, and how their mark making was an attempt to make the true self known; to force the female body to be seen outside of its bound, traditional context.

I am intrigued by the public and private functions of the body as they are represented in the intimate, domestic settings of book art and fiber art.

I'm captivated by fibers, paper, thread, yarn; what I see as connective tissue in art. And so I make weavings, embroideries, hand bound books and zines. Many of the textures I try to capture in my work are echoes of the body, or the landscape where the spirit dwells.

"I am just the messenger, my hands have not marked this history," is repeated over and over again in the historical documents I encounter during my research. In my work, I try to capture this moment that occurs where society turns away from what is happening, in an attempt to hold the eye open. By using history as a lens to examine the female body, I am able to explore the charged awareness of my own body and identity.

Kat Howard was born in Rochester, New York in 1984. She earned a BA in Creative Writing from Brandeis University in 2006, and worked at the Whitney Museum of American Art until 2010, when she left the museum world to pursue an MFA in Book Art & Creative Writing, which she received from Mills College in 2013. Since graduating, she has been working as an independent artist exhibiting her work across the country, and abroad. She also teaches book art and weaving workshops.

Kat started her creative practice as a poet, but soon sought physical means to represent the fabric of her writing. She founded Book Meat Studio in 2009.

Kat lives and works in Kingston, New York at the foothills of the Catskill Mountains set deep in the Hudson Valley, with her husband, Aaron Quint, their young son, Magnus, and their infant daughter, Ronia.